All Fall Down
by Gandalf3213
Summary: One of Jess's mom's old boyfriends is working on Luke's renovation, and this man was never only interested in fooling around with Liz. Jess tries to deal with his reappearance, but Luke is mad and Rory isn't talking to him and he's alone against a man who thinks he can just use Jess in every possible way. (Mentions of pass rape/abuse)
1. Ring Around

**"Yes, it is your fault! You told him to come, you let him stay. Everybody hated him, everybody knew he was trouble but you wouldn't listen and you wouldn't send him home!" _Lorelei about Jess, season 2_**

.***.

Jess thought that Stars Hollow secretly liked to be stirred up every once in a while, which is why they frequently threw their own parties and celebrated obscure holidays. It was an opportunity to shake things up. The other thing that frequently shook things up? Construction.

"Excuse me," Jess muttered as he slipped past the people working on Luke's remodel. He hated living in the plastic-draped rooms, even if he knew that once the wall came down there'd actually be enough space for the two of them.

The construction worker he was trying to pass turned so that Jess ran right into him. "Look who it is," a slow Southern accent said, and the familiar tone made Jess go still. "I never thought I'd find you here."

"Right back at you, Carl," Jess said, "Now will you please get out of my way?"

"Liz is really broken up that you're gone," Carl said, "Even called me once or twice." He didn't move.

Jess finally looked up at him. Carl was huge, which was half the problem, and he was also traditionally handsome and ten years younger than Liz, which made him ten years older than Jess. "Did you answer the call?"

"Your mom's still the best piece of action in New York," Carl said, "Well, second best. After you."

"Thanks for the update," Jess said, "I need to go stab myself in the ears now. Move."

"Is there a problem?" Luke came up behind Jess and put a hand on his shoulder. Jess just barely had time to feel a flare of relief that he actually had protection against Carl this time before Luke said, "Jess, why are you interrupting people when they're actually doing their work? Which you should be doing yourself, by the way."

Carl smirked. "Back to work, kiddo."

Jess followed Luke down the stairs to the diner, "He was interrupting me," Jess said, knowing it wouldn't work. Luke shot him a glare and Jess couldn't help but continue, his voice bordering on a whine. "What? I was just trying to get to work and he blocked my way. It's not always my fault."

Luke grabbed a pad off the counter and started, flipping to a blank page for orders. "Except when your problems with the last three contractors meant I've had to hire four different crews in two weeks."

"The first guy smelled, the second woman was completely incompetent and _stealing from you_ and the third one hit on Rory. Repeatedly." Jess took plates over to a family.

"I'm not saying that they weren't justified complaints…" Luke put the order in and finally stopped and looked at Jess, which was worse. They never really talked while looking at each other. Each of them always tried to find something to do so eye contact never had to be made.

So Jess started wiping the counters, "Well, this guy's no good either, okay? He's…" Jess bit his lip and Luke raised his eyebrow and Jess finally finished, lamely, "he's creepy."

"You know, I'm starting to think you don't want the addition," Luke said. "I'm starting to think you don't want to stay."

Except the alternative was New York, and Luke didn't know half the crap Jess went through with Liz and he wasn't going to know, ever, because right now Luke was working on Jess, was trying, was trying to fix him, and if he knew everything he might realize that Jess was irreparable. "Fine. Have a creepy guy build your house."

"It's just a wall. It'll be a week at most."

"Yeah, whatever," Jess looked at the toast and eggs Caesar always made for him and suddenly didn't feel very hungry. "I'm late for school."

"It's Saturday!"

"Detention," Jess lied smoothly. "Breakfast Club style."

"Let me guess," Luke said, "You're the Judd Nelson of the group?"

"That's the general consensus," Jess said, and breezed out the door before Luke could realize he hadn't touched a bite.

.***.

Jess planned to stay away until after 5, when he figured a lazy worker like Carl would be gone. He found a bookstore and grabbed old Stephen Kings, three for a buck, and read at the dock. He thought about loitering around Rory's house and seeing what she was doing today, but that would probably get him in trouble with Dean and he didn't want to risk a fight he if wanted Luke to fire Carl. And he really needed Carl to not be in his house.

How the hell did Carl end up in Stars Hollow, taking on construction jobs? Okay, so he'd worked construction in New York, but mostly he'd been into the same drugs Liz liked and took them too often to show up for work. Mostly he'd hang around their house until Liz was passed out, and then he'd pay attention to Jess.

Jess closed his eyes and when he opened them it was dark and he was cold. He needed to save up money for a jacket. If he asked Luke for one, he'd probably find it on his bed the next day, no problem. But he liked not asking Luke for more than the bare minimum. Even the addition was making him feel nervous, because it was basically dumping a lot of money into him, Jess, and it was money that Jess couldn't pay back if things went south. And one thing he'd learned in his seventeen years is that things always went south.

He gathered up the books, stuffing the thinnest into his back pocket and carrying the other two. It was only a short walk back into town and Jess kept blinking to keep himself awake. He was tired, but he was also hungry, and was looking forward to an evening watching baseball and eating with his grouchy uncle. God, when had he become so domesticated?

"Where you been today, kid?" The voice materialized into a person that emerged from the shadows.

"You auditioning for a bad horror movie, Carl?" Jess demanded, wishing Carl didn't make him jump. Or at least that he didn't see him jump. Or that he wasn't _laughing_ like that.

"I scare you?" Carl whispered, and he put a finger on Jess's chest, jabbing him, trying to get a rise. "You deserve it. You almost landed me in _jail_."

"I wish I did," Jess said, "You deserve it."

"_You_ deserved it," Carl said, "You were such a pathetic kid. So scrawny. So alone, whenever we got Liz out of the way." He put his hand flat, and he was touching too much of Jess, even through the shirt his hand burned. "You remember the fun we used to have?"

"I can still send you to jail," Jess said, flicking Carl's hand away. He tried to sound sure of himself but he kept glancing past Carl, looking for other people, planning an escape route. Except it was late, and they were still far from the "bustling" city center.

Carl saw him and drawled, "No uncle to help you now, huh? He wouldn't believe you even if you did rat on me. No cop worth his salt would believe you either. I know you haven't cleaned up your act since coming to this shiny place. You're still the dumb JD you were when you were fourteen."

"Not quite," Jess said, "I'm a lot faster now."

And, okay, he wasn't proud of it but he ran. He ran until he couldn't feel Carl's hand on him anymore, or hear his laughter in his ears. He ran until he saw the warm lights of the diner, the unlocked door reminding him that he lived here, he was home.

He burst in, throwing the books on a nearby table. Luke looked up from the bills on the counter and sighed. "You couldn't call all day? I was about to alert Search and Rescue. I even went over to the school. Surprise surprise—Saturday detentions are left to 80s movies."

Jess tried to joke back but found he had no breath. He wheezed for a while before managing, "I'm still shocked that you're a John Hughes fan."

"I was young once," Luke said. He came around the counter, eyebrow coming together. "You go for a run?"

"None of your business."

"Either you're running or you're smoking a pack a day. Oh god. Tell me you're not smoking."

"I don't do drugs," Jess said, and this was supposed to be banter but that came out like a snap. "Seriously, Luke? I lived with Liz. I don't do drugs."

"Alright," Luke said, still looking concerned. "So where were you and why were you running? You in a fight?"

"I was reading."

"It's been dark for two hours."

"I lost track of time. Fell asleep."

"You weren't harassing small children or terrorizing strangers?"

"You really just believe the worst of me, don't you?"

"You still want the new construction workers fired?"

Jess bit his tongue to stop himself from saying _yes_. To stop himself from telling Luke everything. Because Carl was right—Luke didn't trust him. This interrogation proved it. Luke wouldn't believe him. No one would.

So instead he sidestepped his uncle and swiped the books back up from the table. "Can you stop them from working before school? It's messing with my sleep."

"Really? I thought they were pretty quiet."

That's not the point. The point is that a long time ago Jess had trained himself to wake up to strange men coming into his sleeping environment. "Whatever," Luke said, "It's fine. It's all fine."

"If you don't want to stick around long enough to enjoy this renovation—which, by the way, is pretty pricey—then just say so and you can be on a bus tomorrow."

"I've got homework," Jess said. His grip on the books was too tight. He couldn't look at Luke, because then his words would come out wobbly and weird, like he cared, like he thought this arrangement might last longer than the others. "And I'm going to do it, unless I'm not going to be here on Monday."

He chanced a look up at Luke, who sighed, a heavy, weary, too-familiar sound. "Go upstairs."

"Yes, sir," Jess muttered, and he turned before he could see if Luke took this as sarcasm or for what it was, a deeply ingrained, incredibly embarrassing response to older men deciding his future for him.

.***.

The next day Luke wasn't talking to him, not in any substantial way. Which sucked, because Sundays were the day that Jess worked at the diner, a 9 to 5 shift that only ended because the town locked down Sunday nights. Usually Luke's gruffness helped the hours go by. Well, Luke's gruffness and the inevitable appearance of the one of the Gilmore girls to stir things up.

They came in at noon, Lorelei making a bee-line to Luke even though she was with that other guy, the teacher, and Rory flitted over to Jess even though she was with Dean, Mr. Stand-Up Guy. "Hey," she said, "Stephen King again?" She was looking at the book curled up near the cash register, _The Stand_. "Pretty dark. Pretty…"

"Not up to your usual literary standards?" Jess snapped, and then shook himself when Rory looked at her with those big blue eyes. Wasn't her fault Carl was leering around. "You got a better suggestion?"

"No, I just never understood horror. It's so…icky."

"Icky?"

Rory smiled, "Not the right word?"

Jess glanced at Luke, sufficiently absorbed with arguing with Lorelei. "Not for the King. He's all character psychology. You'd like it."

"That's not fair. I like everything." Rory blushed when Jess smirked. "You know what I mean."

"Do I? You better show me."

There was a loud crash from upstairs, and Jess cringed when he heard Carl swear. Nothing good used to come from that sound in his past. Rory looked at him strangely. "Who's that?"

"New carpenter."

"Should we check on him?"

At that same moment, Luke looked over at Jess. "Jess, will you go check on that?" It was the first thing he'd said to Jess all day, and it was huffy, barely civil, and he went right back to arguing with his favorite sparring partner.

Rory was already crossing over to the staircase. "I'll go with you! I'm terrible with tools—"

"No kidding?" Jess muttered.

"—and so carpentry just seems like magic. Like, every year Luke gives mom five hours of free labor for her birthday? I come into the house after that and everything's suddenly fixed."

Jess nodded. "Magic is obviously the only explanation."

"Obviously."

Carl had broken a lamp and looked up when Jess and Rory walked in. "I'm fixing it, don't worry."

"It was just loud," Rory said, automatically smiling. And why shouldn't she, Jess thought. Carl was handsome, Jess guessed, and he was halfway between his age and his mother's and so had the attractive of being not-too-too-much-older. And he had that accent, that tone, that smile that had sucked Liz in three years before. "We were wondering if you'd hurt yourself."

"Not yet, little lady, but if it makes you come up here more I might just find a way to drive a nail through my hand." Carl grinned and Rory blushed and Jess rolled his eyes. Maybe this is how he could get Carl out of his life for good.

"If you can't be careful up here, we can find another carpenter."

"Jess!" Rory admonished, looking aghast.

"A local," Jess looked at her, "Isn't Stars Hollow all about supporting locals? This guy's just a drifter. A nobody."

"Well, he's making your room bigger, so I'd say he's pretty important," Rory said, annoyed.

"My thanks, little lady," Carl drawled, and Rory actually giggled. For a weird moment, Jess wished that Dean was here to see this behavior. If there's one thing he could count on that moose for, it was insane jealousy. "This guy's just a little touchy about me having a key to his room." Carl dug into his pocket and held up a key identical to the one in Jess's pocket.

"Give me that," Jess said, feeling cold at the thought that Carl could come and go as he pleased. His face pounded with the force of the blood in his ears and his mouth was dry. "You shouldn't have a key."

"Luke gave it to me, take it up with him."

"I will!"

"Jess," Rory said, "What's you problem?"

"He's my problem!" Jess yelled.

He turned so that he was yelling in Rory's face, and he could see her face close, eyes shutter, chin stick out petulantly. "I need to go," she said, turning around.

"Rory…"

"Have fun with your book." Rory said over her shoulder. Really, she was already gone.

"And then there were two," Carl said, looking Jess up and down. Jess bit his cheek and looked away. "Damn kid. You grew up good. You were cute at fourteen but now…"

"Give me that key," Jess said, and now he couldn't stop his voice from shaking.

"No," Carl said. "And you know what? I think this project is going to take a little longer than I thought. I might be around for a while."

"Then I won't be," Jess said. He could find other places to sleep. He'd sneak in, break in, sleep outside if it meant Carl couldn't find him.

"Oh, you'll be right here," Carl said. "I was thinking about starting up our little business again."

Jess's mind went blank. He blinked. "What? Are you kidding? Stars Hollow doesn't have the same seedy underbelly New York does."

"Maybe a little more private than last time. You and me, kid."

"If you touch me, I'll kill you." Jess hissed. "I should have killed you when I was fourteen, even after you threatened my _mother_."

"And it's so much easier here," Carl said, moving forward, putting a hand on Jess's arm, sliding it up to his shoulder. "More people you care about. Your pathetically trusting uncle….that pretty girl…"

"I'll kill you," Jess protested, but then the hand dipped lower, lifted his shirt, and Jess didn't move, just looked at the ceiling and concentrated on breathing. Carl was bigger than him and Carl was holding a sledgehammer. And Luke was fifty feet away, downstairs, pissed, right next to a nearby, pissed-off Rory.

"You're not killing me now," Carl said. "So you listen up. You try to run, and I'll break that pretty girl's arm. You try to hurt me? I'll kill your uncle."

"You can't control me. I'm not fourteen anymore."

"No," Carl said, running a hand over Jess's torso, "You're not."

Jess punched Carl in the stomach and the next thing he knew he was on the ground, a sledgehammer hovering an inch above his collarbone. "Are you going to cooperate?" Carl asked, "Or am I going to have to mess up this pretty little body you've grown into?"

"You're going to jail."

"Why do you keep making these empty threats, boy? No one's ever going to believe you. No one even likes you." He patted Jess's chest, a gentle motion, "Except me."

"I'm not going to let you do this to me again," Jess said, and then he snapped his mouth shut because he was crying. How embarrassing is that?

"Oh, boy," Carl said, lifting Jess's shirt up more. "You already are."

**.***.**

**in honor of Gilmore Girls coming on netflix, we're writing a throwback story. we're thinking this is going to be a three-parter. who doesn't like jess? who doesn't think he has more of a backstory than he let on?**

**like it? hate it? drop us a line, it makes i easier to know where to go with the rest of the story.**


	2. Pocket Full

**"You have nothing? I have nothing!" _Jess to Luke, season 3_**

.***.

Jess could turn off his brain when bad things were happening. He retreated to a place far within himself, the same quiet place he went to when he read, a solitude so sharp that a day could pass without noticing, time slipping away like oil off glass.

Carl took Jess's shirt off all the way, ripped it off, and Jess went to that place, determined not to feel the hands moving over his skin, lower. It wasn't as if this hadn't happened before. But before he'd been fourteen and scrawny, getting by mostly on his mouth and his speed, and when Carl cornered him at night after Liz passed out from the drugs he pumped into her, Jess had nowhere to run. When Carl put a knife to Liz's unconsciousness neck, Jess had taken his clothes off himself.

So he was the one who began it. After that, Jess meant to tell his mother but couldn't bring himself to admit that he'd had sex (_been raped, _a logical part of him corrected_, raped_) by mom's boyfriend.

Carl flipped him onto his stomach and Jess moved bonelessly, thinking of the people downstairs. Luke, whose brotherly opinion of Liz was already wavering. Rory, who was with someone else, who wasn't his to think about at all. Lorelei and all the other townspeople who wouldn't mind seeing him dead or at the very least gone, who probably would walk in on a scene like the one he and Carl were creating and click their tongues like they never expected anything different.

"Still such a great piece of ass," Carl's breath was hot on Jess's neck and brought him back to the floor and the pain. For the first time, Jess squirmed, and Carl's hand wrapped around the back of his neck and ground him into the floor.

This time, Jess fought back, feeling the old hot rage in his stomach, the rage that he knew scared Liz, that scared Luke, the rage he kept bottled up because of the man on top of him. He bucked, threw Carl off, stood up. He was naked, and shaking. "You're not going to hurt Luke," he said. "You never hurt Liz."

"You always did what I said," Carl drawled, sounding amused.

"Or I was too dumb to call your bluff," Jess said, turning his back just for a moment to grab a towel from the rack in the bathroom.

Carl grabbed him, hand bruising his upper arm. "You think so? You want to see just how easy it is for me to hurt these stupid people?"

Just like that, Carl was gone, zipping up his jeans and blowing down the stairs. Jess started to follow him, heart pounding, thinking of Luke, of Rory, of the hammer Carl had grabbed. But he needed to pull on his clothes and that took precious seconds. By the time he got downstairs, Carl was already sitting next to Rory at the counter.

"Rory," Jess said, voice tight, interrupting the conversation, "Can I talk to you?"

"No," the girl said, frowning, "I'm talking to Carl. And I have nothing to say to you."

"Please."

"Aww, little lady, go on and talk to the kid. He was real broken up when you left him with me upstairs." Carl reached out a hand and Rory, the good girl, shook it.

"Ouch!" She yelled, looking at her palm where blood was already beading, bright as a ruby. She looked at Carl, incredulous, even as Lorelei was bustling over, attuned to the cries of her child.

"Did Luke's food succeed in actually claiming a victim?" Lorelei asked, taking Rory's hurt hand. "Oh honey, I think you've got the stigmata. We need to change our route so it doesn't go by the church anymore, I think it's starting to sink in."

Rory was eyeing Carl, whose face was the picture of grief even as he looked over Rory's shoulder at Jess. "Sorry little lady. Must've been a nail I forgot in my hand. My fault."

"It's no problem," Rory said. Luke was pressing a napkin to her hand, "It's already stopped bleeding." She furrowed her brow. "Jess? Are you okay?"

Everyone was looking at him, so Jess tried to get his breathing under control. But his vision tunneled down to Carl, grinning at him, knowing that this, this one pinprick, meant that he won, that he could do whatever he wanted in this town and he'd be forgiven while he, Jess, would never be anything more than a burden.

He'd been quiet for just a moment too long, "I'm fine," he said. Everyone kept looking, and Jess coughed, looked down, "Are you okay, Rory?"

"She's fine. We're all fine. And also ready to leave," Lorelei tugged Rory's arm and pulled her out of the chair. She glanced back at Jess. "Why aren't you wearing shoes?"

Carl laughed once, too loud, and then he drank the rest of Lorelei's coffee and went upstairs. Luke was still staring at Jess. "What?" Jess demanded.

"I don't know," Luke said, taking off his hat, nervous habit, "You look. I don't know."

"Well, when you do know, tell me."

"You look like you've been crying," Luke said, all at once, at a fierce whisper.

Jess scrubbed a hand over his face, "I haven't been."

"Is something wrong?" Luke said.

The problem was that he looked sincere, he looked like he would listen to whatever Jess said. What if he knew that Jess was clutching the counter because it was hard to stand upright, he was crying because he was embarrassed and scared but also in pain, physical pain? He might care, might even go upstairs and throw Carl out of their house. Or he might throw Jess out, because Jess was passive, weak, and Luke expected so much from him and this was just one more disappointment.

"No," Jess said, "There's nothing wrong."

Luke put his hat back on, shifted his weight, "Okay," he grabbed an order from the counter, "go get your shoes."

"Can I have a minute?" Jess asked, and he hated his own voice, hated that it bordered on a whine.

"You just had twenty," Luke said, "People are coming in. Shoes, kid."

Luke watched as Jess bit his lip, turned to back up the stairs. There was something Jess wasn't telling him. He couldn't climb the stairs easily, as if his back hurt, or his legs. And on the back of his neck was a bruise like a hand. More fights. Luke resigned himself to getting another call from a concerned parent and didn't think of his nephew's injuries again.

That evening, when the repairman told Luke that the wall was going to take another week to come down, Luke just nodded absentmindedly, not looking up when Jess walked out the door, not even looking up when the repairman walked right out after him

.***.

The next day was school, thank God, and Jess lost himself in the back of his classes, staring at books and trying to keep still when he ached _everywhere_. Carl had held Jess down again late at night, in his car, and Jess had gone out willingly because Carl had a key and had no problem bashing Luke's head in. Jess failed a quiz in history and couldn't bring himself to care. When he got back an earlier grade, one from weeks ago, when he was still just pining for Rory and could actually concentrate, he stuffed it in his bag before anyone could see it was an A.

But of course someone saw. Jess swung his bag over his shoulder, trying to hold back the wince, and rolled his eyes when Dean detached from the group of super-jocks. "Hey," Dean said, articulately.

"Hey," Jess waited for Dean to continue the conversation but when nothing else seemed forthcoming he said, "Well, this was riveting, but I have to go to work."

"I saw your history quiz," Dean said, rubbing the back of his neck. He kept his voice low, "I don't think anyone else got an A but you."

"Lucky me."

"If I don't bring up my history grade, coach isn't going to let me play basketball."

"Who will lead the Hoosiers to victory then?"

Dean blinked at him, and flashed a grin, and Dean rolled his eyes because this has been a weird weekend and the fact that Dean was talking to him without being all chest-pounding territorial about Rory was just a little too much strangeness to handle. "Yeah, well, I was wondering if you had notes I could study from. Or something. I mean, we do work right next to each other. If you wanted to study together..."

"I'd be tutoring you."

Dean rolled eyes, "Forget it man. I was trying to, I don't know, be nice to you, pay you a compliment. Rory thought we should be friends."

"Rory put you up to this?" Jess said.

"Forget it," Dean said, "I'll figure out history myself."

Jess shrugged and turned down the hall, taking the book out of his back pocket more out of habit than actual want to concentrate on the already swimming letters. He didn't know that Dean was still staring after him, eyes focused on the bruise on the back of his neck.

.***.

Four days later, Jess was close to breaking. It wasn't just the sex (_rape_). It was the fact that no one knew or would care, that he was essentially alone, and that aloneness used to seem like a protection but now it was a burden, because there were still people he cared about enough to play Carl's stupid games to protect, but they didn't care about him.

That was the day Luke went to help Lorelei get a raccoon out of her kitchen and Carl practically dragged Jess up the stairs. Weirdly, his first thought had been that no one was watching the diner. "I can't stand it," Carl said, watching as Jess took off his shirt, folded it, "Seeing you walk around in those shirts gets me so..." he didn't finish his sentence. He kissed Jess and bit his lip hard enough to bleed.

Sometimes, Liz would come up from the drugs and slap Jess around, telling him not to spread filthy lies, saying that Carl was a good man, who paid the rent and paid for smack and they owed him. Telling the truth had only caused Jess more pain, and so he couldn't say the rest, which was that sometimes people paid Carl cash to see Jess and touch him.

It was painful today, Carl rough, upset that he couldn't think of any more excuses to delay the project, that he'd have to move on. The memory was painful, too, and Jess deliberately pulled himself away from it, tried to think of gentler things. The book Rory had given him "because it's Tuesday." The time Luke had realized Jess had never played catch with anyone and so had gone out and gotten gloves and balls and they threw the ball back and forth for hours, until the sun was gone, until it was too dark to see the white ball, to see each other.

Carl hit him. He was already on his stomach, and the blow landed across his back. "Don't go zoning out, kiddo. This is just you and me." He hit Jess again, because he could.

That was the day that Jess couldn't move when he got back down to the diner. He went into the kitchen and begged Caesar to go out to the front, run plates, play bus boy, and he'd take over the stove. When Luke got back, he got an earful. "You can't even scramble an egg!"

"No one came in," Jess mumbled, poking at a burger patty. "I didn't poison anyone."

"_Yet_. Why would you even want to be back here? It's hot."

"I fancied a change of scene."

"Oh yeah? Well you won't be getting one for a couple of hours. You're working until ten tonight."

Jess didn't think he could stay on his feet that long. His head was pounding, his chest hurt, his ass hurt. He wanted Luke to hug him. He wanted to curl into a ball. He wanted to disappear. "Come on. I have school tomorrow."

"You'll get your beauty rest, princess."

"I was only at the stove for five minutes!"

Luke raised an eyebrow. Jess usually didn't complain in so many words. He'd rattle plates and sigh and make snarky comments but he almost never whined like he did now. "What's up with you lately?" Luke said, "All this week you've been disappearing and talking back and trying to get people fired."

"He should be fired," Jess muttered.

"Why?" Luke demanded, "One good reason, Jess, that's all I'm asking."

Jess bit his lip, taking off the apron and handing it to Caesar. "He...he hurt Rory."

To his surprise, Luke nodded, "If it was any worse than a pinprick, I might consider that. But even you've got to know an accident when you see it."

"Yeah," Jess said. He looked out into the diner. It had never seemed so large before. So much walking would be involved, and he already felt so strained and drawn and done. "Sorry, Luke." He brushed by his uncle, picking up a pad, searching for a pencil, trying not to move like an invalid.

Luke rolled his eyes and wondered if parenting ever got any easier.

.***.

Jess leaned against the trashcans and wondered if he could make it to the dock. If he was going to kill himself, he'd like it to be there, in that place. His place. It was ten, and the diner was finally closing, and Jess didn't know if he could make it back up the couple of stairs from the alley, let alone half a mile outside of town.

"Hey."

It wasn't manly, but Jess screamed. Carl had developed a habit of sneaking up on him, touching him, watching him jump. He turned and tried to turn his scream into a snort, but it was too late. Dean already looked worried.

"You okay?" Dean asked, moving another step forward. He was two feet away, and Jess realized in that moment that Dean was tall, really tall, and jock probably meant that he was strong. He knew it was crazy, but it didn't stop his heart from pounding in his ears.

His default position was snark, anyway, "I'm _fine_."

"Jess," Dean shuffled awkwardly, glanced at the diner's side door, lowered his voice, "I saw the bruises."

If Jess could move without looking like he was an escapee from a geriatric ward, he would have just gone back inside, left Dean alone with his speculations. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"I know you're not from around here, and it's hard to go against someone who grew up here. And I know we haven't exactly been welcoming-_I_ haven't been welcoming-but I can help. You come clean to me here and we'll go down to the police station. I know one of the cops, he'll listen to me, which means he'll listen to you."

"What are you talking about?" Dean asked, trying to wrap his head around the fact that Dean had noticed, that Dean of all people had seen the signs he'd been trying to hide and was confronting him about it. Mostly he was ashamed, angry, disappointed that he couldn't hide it better. But a part of him was so, so happy that someone else knew.

Dean grabbed his arm, and the move was so gentle, so unlike anything Carl had done that Jess let him. He pushed up Jess's sleeve and whistled at the sight of the hand-shaped bruise. It was black and deep. You could count fingers. "You don't deserve this."

Jess pulled away, "What do you know about what I deserve?"

"If Luke is hurting you..."

He didn't get any further than that. Jess stared at Dean and then burst out laughing. It was a real laugh, and it felt good. Luke, hurt him? No way. The guy was all bark and no bite. He was protective. He was nothing like Carl. "Luke? Who are you going to accuse next, Dean? You think Miss Patty's got a dark side to her?"

Dean shook his head, looked confused, as if this wasn't what he was expecting. "If it's not Luke, then who's hurting you?"

"Haven't you heard?" Jess said, raising an eyebrow, "I'm the town delinquent. I've got to pick fights sometimes. Keep up my status."

The thought of Luke beating him made him buoyant. It was preposterous, and the very revelation that Luke would never lay a pinky finger on him made Jess feel lighter. One more day, and he'd be in the clear. One more day, and Carl would be gone. He went back into the diner whistling, leaving Dean in the alley alone.

.***.

"You're going to come with me," Carl said. He was lying on top of Jess like a heavy, sweaty sandbag, crushing him.

"No I'm not," Jess said. "One week. That was the deal."

"The deal was, you do what I say or I hurt your uncle and that girl. I say we blow this popsicle stand."

Jess elbowed Carl in the ribs, for which he received a smack in the head that left him seeing stars. He was weaker than he'd been at the beginning of all this. Food no longer stayed down. He panted and lay still under Carl. "I'll kill myself."

"You won't. It's the coward's way out."

"The coward's way out is what I did when I was a kid. I should have turned you in."

"Why didn't you?"

It would have broken Liz's heart, and at that point Jess had still thought he could make his relationship with his mother work. If he'd known she would have shipped him away anyway...well, maybe he would have gone to NYPD and told the boys in blue his sob story. Maybe he was still little enough, cute enough, that someone might have cared.

Now he was too old, too scarred, too angry for anyone to care about. "I'm not going with you," Jess said, looking at the door. They were back up in Luke's apartment. The wall was down and tools and wood was scattered, just waiting to be cleaned up. Carl was supposed to be leaving. This was supposed to be happy.

"Haven't you figured it out yet?" Carl said, kissing down Jess's neck. "You're mine, and I can do whatever I want with you."

So Jess was just trying to prove him wrong when he grabbed the piece of wood from off the floor by the bed and swung it behind his head. Carl made a small noise, and then went still.

Of course, that was the moment Luke walked in.

**.***.**

**one more chapter to go. please keep up the feedback, it means a lot to us.**


	3. Ashes, Ashes

**"He's my nephew. I had an obligation to take him in, I had an obligation to care for him." _Luke to Lorelei, season 2_**

.***.

Some people in Stars Hollow were naive. They saw a JD like Jess, with a chip on his shoulder, and wrote him off. Don't let him date your daughters. Don't let him befriend your sons. He's from New York, that big bad city. He's pissed about moving to a small town. Grab the torch. Don't forget the pitchfork.

Luke defended his nephew out of familial protectiveness, but also because he knew Liz, he knew Liz after she moved away from the small town and got knocked up and stopped caring. He suspected that Jess was more hurt, more broken, then he let anyone in the town know.

Case in point: when Jess was eight, serious and skinny, he'd visited Luke for a week and they went camping. Jess caught a fish five minute in, and he had reeled it back in only to have it slap him, squirm, flap back to the lake. Luke had sworn loudly, and Jess started stammering apologies. "I'm sorry," he kept saying, over and over again, minutes later, hours. "I'm sorry Uncle Luke. I'm no good at fishing. I'm useless. I'm too stupid for camping."

Luke had growled, sharply, "Stop saying that," and Jess had closed his mouth, swallowed hard.

And Luke had looked at this kid, who was looking at his shoe and trying very hard not to shake, and he'd _known_, he'd known like he knew his father was dead, and his sister was gone, and the woman he loved had a little girl just about Jess's age. Whatever was happening to Jess back in New York was very Not Good. So he'd gone back to the diner and called his sister and said that Jess was spending another week, two, why doesn't he just stay the whole summer? They'd gone camping a lot. Jess had been little and easy, and though he'd been serious, too serious, he would smile sometimes and he started wearing baseball caps backwards and he played with the local kids, with little shy Rory and little loud Dean, and though they all appeared to have forgotten Luke remembered the glorious summer before his sister called and wanted to pretend to be a mom again.

He hadn't seen Jess for years after that.

God, he should have done better by the kid. This was all his fault.

.***.

Jess was so tired and hurt so you'd think he wouldn't have enough emotional room to feel embarrassed on top of everything, but that was the first thing that registered when Luke walked in to see Carl slumped all over his body. Shame like a hot knife. Shame that cut through him and robbed him of speech.

For an instant they were frozen, and Jess was very aware of the fact that he was naked from the waist down, and Carl was in a similar state of undress. He was very aware that Luke was from a small town. He was very aware that he was a JD. What would this look like? A love affair? Could he possibly talk his way out of this one?

"Sorry," was the first word he could think of, squirming, trying to dislodge Carl who was out _cold_ on his back, and huge, and Jess was a small guy, okay? And squirming was kind of painful. "Luke, please, I'm sorry."

"What the hell?" Luke said, starting forward, and his voice was loud as thunder.

"It's not what it looks like," Jess got out from under the body and looked for his pants but there was blood, god there was blood all over his legs because Carl was rough and Jess was small and all of it was so, so embarrassing.

"I don't know what this looks like," Luke said. He was looking at Carl. "Is he dead? What the hell happened?!"

Jess winced at the shouting. There were customers downstairs. He did not, did not, did not need anyone else in the town to know about this. "He's not-I hit him, okay? He was...I didn't...Please, Luke I'm so fucking sorry."

"For what?" Luke was somehow not shouting now, maybe he remembered the customers too. "Jess? What's going on here?"

Jess took a deep breath, all ready to explain everything, starting from when he was little and used and going to when he's old and still stupid enough to be used. He looked at Luke. And burst into tears.

.***.

Luke had no idea what to do. Jess didn't cry. He was that kid with a smirk that lived permanently in the corner of his mouth. He was the guy in the back of the classroom who was labeled as dangerous. He was the little kid, calling himself useless for not being able to fish on the first try.

Jess still hadn't put on pants, seemed constitutionally incapable, and for the first time Luke forced himself to look at his nephew, to really look, to assess the damage. There were bruises. There was the blood running down the leg. There were the deep pockets under the eyes and the thin look to the cheeks and neck and collarbone. _He should be fired_. Jess had told him that so many times this week. _He hurt Rory_.

But, apparently, to nowhere near the amount he'd hurt Jess.

Jess was still crying, and Luke took two big steps away from him, towards the telephone. "What?" Jess's voice was low and thick with tears, "What are you doing?"

"Calling the police."

"I didn't mean to!" Jess blinked a lot and took a couple of deep breaths and reached for the phone and then drew his hands back, suddenly, very aware of himself. "Please, Luke, he was-he was hurting me. I know, I know everyone thinks I get into all these fights but I just-I couldn't take it." Jess looked over his shoulder and winced. "I think he's still alive. I just wanted it to stop."

"Hey," Luke put the phone down and grabbed Jess one of his sweatshirts, several sizes bigger than the thin teen, and he draped it over Jess. It went halfway to his knees, and some of the shaking stopped. Jess was still taking big gulping breaths, like he couldn't get enough air. "I'm calling them to come arrest Carl, not you. Hey," he touched Jess's shoulder, then his other one, forced the kid to look at him. "I believe you. You did nothing wrong."

For thirty long seconds Jess just tried to pull himself together. He leaned into Luke's touch and gulped in big breaths and shook his head. Every once in a while the old Jess mask would slip on, and everything would look normal, and then his face would crack and he was crying again. Luke let this happen. He kept an eye on Carl. If the man regained consciousness before the police arrived Luke would kill him, plain and simple, and he wouldn't even feel bad about it.

This man had hurt his boy. _  
><em>

"Please don't call the police," Jess finally said, his voice too too small when he finally managed to speak. "I can't tell them what happened."

"Why don't you tell me," Luke said.

Jess looked over his shoulder at Carl and Luke cupped the back of his nephew's head, making sure he couldn't turn all the way around. "Don't worry about him. I've got an eye on him. He won't hurt you again. I need the facts here, kiddo. I need," It was Luke's turn to take a big breath. "Just tell me what's going on."

"I'm pathetic," Jess said, "I'm so pathetic, or this wouldn't have happened again."

Again?

"Carl is Liz's boyfriend," Jess said. He was talking fast, and seemed to be trying to bury himself in Luke. He kept inching closer, leaning into his touch. "Was. Is. I don't know. He used to be her drug dealer. If she couldn't pay he's ummm...he's use me. As payment. With a lot of guys. Then I guess he came up to New England and decided he could do it all over again." He chanced a glance at Luke. "Pathetic."

Luke's hand closed into a fist and there was anger in him, anger in his belly and his eyes and his heart, directed at Liz and Carl and those men who had used a younger more defenseless Jess. But he couldn't let that out now, not with his stoic nephew in his arms ready to break, and who knew if anyone could pick up the pieces. "Not pathetic. Look at me, Jess." And Jess looked. His eyes were so wet and he kept blinking the tears away, trying so hard to be grown-up. "What did he do to you this time? How hurt are you?"

"It's-I've had worse."

"I would like it if you went to the hospital." Luke said this lightly, like Jess had a choice in the matter. Luke knew everyone in town, including a discrete, quiet man who was an accomplished veterinarian. Teenage boys were not dogs, but the man would know something. Luke was already trying to remember the man's name, already placing the call, because he expected Jess's answer.

"No," Jess said, "Please. No."

That's when two things happened: Carl started to move, and the door to the diner and the outside world opened.

.***.

Dean had never walked into a weirder scene.

Luke's apartment was finished, though there was still that plastic crap on the floor that came with renovations, so there was space where a wall had been. Even weirder, Luke was hugging Jess, and neither one had ever been a tactile person. Worse, Jess was half naked. Worse worse, there was a half-naked man (_the construction worker_, some knowledgeable part of Dean's brain supplied) on the bed. And he looked like he had a bad head wound.

Luke looked between Dean and the construction worker and it was like he was working out the answer to a hard problem. "Dean, go clear out the diner. As fast as you can. Say it's an emergency."

"There's no one there," Dean said, dumbly, "I came up here to find you-Caesar's gone, and it's all deserted, but the door's still unlocked."

"Then take Jess downstairs and lock the door and close the blinds and don't come back up here for anything. No matter what you hear."

"Uncle Luke," Jess began, but Luke was already pushing the half-naked guy into Dean's arms.

Jess looked even worse than he had the night before, when Dean had thought Luke was hitting him. Okay, that sounded like an absurd theory now, but Dean had been half-right. Everyone assumed he wasn't bright because he was nice and because he was dating perhaps the most intelligent girl on the planet, but Dean had a lot of common sense, and a lot of intuition, and knew that something bad had happened between Dean and the guy on the bed.

And Jess must have been pretty out of it, because he didn't start protesting until they were downstairs. He hung in the doorway while Dean closed the blinds and locked the door because, hello, naked, but by the time Dean came back over he was looking over his shoulder back at the apartment. "Luke shouldn't be alone with him."

"Luke can take care of himself," Dean said, "Besides, that guy looked like he was already hurt."

Dean didn't know that there was an expression that read _guilty_ until that moment, when Jess turned red under the paleness and looked away and pursed his lips, and everything was confirmed._  
><em>

"Hey man," Dean said, and it was like he was talking to Clara, he used that same voice, that same gentleness, because Jess was like a wounded dog ready to lash out. "Why don't you sit. Can you-I mean, if it doesn't hurt."

Jess looked down at his legs. There was blood coming from him in little rivulets, and Dean didn't want to think about where the blood was coming from, but of course he knew. "Yeah," Jess said, after a too-long moment, "Sitting will hurt."

There was a loud noise from the apartment and Dean didn't even think. He took two steps so he was between the apartment and Jess, putting the injured teen behind him.

"My hero," Jess said, and at least he had some of his snark. "I'd punch you if I could move my arm. I'm not a fucking damsel in distress."

"Sure look like one to me."

Jess glared, the effect rather diminished by the livid bruise over his eye, and thank God that was the moment that Luke opened the apartment door and started coming downstairs.

"What happened?" Luke and Jess asked at the same time. Jess shot his glare at his uncle, repeating, "What happened?"

"I might have knocked him out again."

"Not dead?"

"Against my better judgement," Luke growled, and Jess flinched, and even Dean flinched because this was Luke who was like one of those Halloween candies that was hard on the outside with a gooey center, and Dean had never seen him like this, like the wrong word would make him destroy a mountain. "What happened down here?"

"Dean was feeling especially heroic," Jess said, "Though I think it was just overcompensation for the feelings he's getting in his private parts, getting a look at my awesomeness out in the open like this."

Now it was Dean's turn to glare, but before he could get any words out Luke was reaching for the phone and Jess was having a minor conniption. "What are you doing?"

"Calling the police! In case you haven't noticed, there's a rapist knocked out in our apartment!"

Dean winced at the word, and Jess gave him a look that could have meant anything in the world. Not like Dean wasn't guessing it was something along those lines, but it just seemed so...out of place. Out of place for Stars Hollow, and for Jess, who was so tough.

"I can't," Jess swallowed, "I can't tell anyone. They won't believe me. I'm not some-I'm strong, okay? And I'm too old for this shit. And I should have fought harder."

"You don't deserve this, Jess," Dean said, and Luke and Jess looked at him like they'd been hoping he'd left, and Dean put up his hands. "Look, I don't even like you, okay? You look like crap. You look like someone's been beating the shit out of you for a week and you've been letting them. They'll have to believe you."

"It wasn't," Jess looked resigned, "It wasn't technically...you're right, I did let him. He said if I didn't..."

Luke looked like he wanted to punch something but was holding back. He was also looking at Jess like he'd kill the next thing that hurt his nephew. Dean had never had someone who would go to the ends of the earth like that for him. Not his mom or his sister or even, probably, Rory. He was everyone's protector, and in that instant he was jealous of Jess, which was stupid because the guy was looking for very broken right now. "If you didn't, then what?" Luke prompted.

"He'd hurt you," Jess said this part in a whisper. "God it's so pathetic, but I believed him because he said he'd hurt Rory too and then he _did_."

"He did _what_ to Rory?" Dean roared, and he didn't know he could feel like this, go from 0 to 60 in a second, but if that guy had touched Rory like he'd obviously touched Jess...

"Calm down, Hercules," Jess muttered, "Your girlfriend's virtue is intact. He poked her. With a nail. A pinprick of blood."

"You told me to fire him after that."

"Well," Jess said, "I told you to fire a lot of people."

"God kid," Luke said, "I'm so fucking sorry."

"Me too," Jess said.

And, just because he didn't want to feel left out, Dean said, "Me too." And Jess and Luke looked at him. And even with a rapist in their apartment, even with Jess half-naked and bleeding, even with so many things left to be done, they all burst out laughing. Because sometimes it's either laugh or cry.

By the time Luke reached for the phone again, Jess was sobbing. Dean patted him awkwardly on the back and Luke ventured back upstairs for some sweatpants. "Hey," Dean said. Luke had been gone for a very long time, it seemed, or maybe time just slowed down so all the emotion could strip you raw, "it's going to be okay."

"Really?" Jess said, and he sounded like he was going to drown in his own tears.

Dean swallowed, hard. He had a lump in his throat, too. "Really," he lied, and waited with the other teen to see what was going to come next.

**.***.**

**the end. **

**yeah okay dean's actually our favorite. yeah okay we kind of want dean winchester to come by and take this situation in hand. yeah okay that's the ending, and we'd love to know what you thought. it's weird. it's not really an answer. what the hell is the answer to this situation? **

**if you know the answer, please tell us. **

**peace and prosperity,**

**us**


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